Joann S. Lublin recently wrote an article in WSJ’s Managing Your Career section: “Recall the Mistakes of Your Past Bosses, So You can Do Better”. She approached three leaders for their learnings, which in summary are:

• Never humiliate staffers in front of others;
• Lightning-fast decisions may be wrong;
• Rarely interfere with a subordinate’s personal time outside the office;
• Remember that perception is reality;

I am a big believer in learning from others: good, bad and the ugly. So, inspired by the article, here are my leadership and management learnings from my past bosses…

• Don’t just give them the fish, teach them how to fish - When it comes to assigning tasks, it is easy to be reminded of the saying “be careful what you ask for, as you might get it”. You want more complete, creative and innovative results from your staff, then take the time to share. Go for a coffee, and discuss the assignment, its background, context, your concerns, stakeholders, overall objectives, challenges, as well as any constraints. Utilize the SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, relavant and timely) as well as the delegation model to emphasize expectations, including the empowerment levels. This will certainly minimize the rework, and the results might pleasantly suprise you.
• There is a sweet spot between being complacent and a fire fighter - Creative chaos can be a powerful stimulate for the innovation process. Giving tight deadlines, small budgets and challenging problems and objectives will certainly result in few grunts, but should also trigger more exciting ideas and out of the box thinking from your team. However, if your team is starts to refer to your ideas as ‘the flavor of the week’, then that might be the sign that you’ve gone too far…
• There is no silver-bullet - Managers have the tendency to rely on silver-bullets, and can build dependency on a few of their star developers. But, it is the team that delivers the product. Just like on the basketball court, we need everyone on the team to contribute, including the ones that are sitting on the sidelines. You will be surprised on what the support crew can deliver once you give them the permission and the empowerment.
• Give them the rope, but prevent the hanging - As managers it is our duty to grow and stretch our team. However, that doesn’t mean one should stand by the sidelines and become a pure spectator. You need to use your judgement, as there’s nothing more educational to an employee than a good hanging.
• Think local, act cross-functional - Even the most entrepreneurial and empowered teams can innovate only so much. As managers it is our jobs to think bigger, make connections and translate those innovations to greatness.

And, if you are wondering about the ugly… I learned the most important lesson of all: what doesn’t kill me, makes me a stronger woman. How about you? What are your thoughts, and learnings?

Technorati Tags: leadership, management

Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson have just started AsktheVC blog. From the looks of it, it will be a great resource for enterpreneurs and all. Their goal is to build a strong knowledge base of VC and enterpreneurship information reference resource on the Web. So, questions are welcomed and encouraged. Check it out, and ask away…

Technorati Tags: blog, VC, enterpreneurship

Gordon Graham of Broken Bulbs: Innovation blog tagged me for “The 5-Question Interview”. This certainly was a suprise, a pleasant one that is.

1. What have you learned so far from your visitors?

This is a difficult question given the short duration of my blogging experience, and that I don’t track metrics on my visitors. I only know you from your comments. However, I have learned each one has their own motivation for reading my blog, and some have their own blogs. This allows me to learn from their blogging experience, but also learn about them through their blogs. Through the interaction, I also learn about myself: it is like a performance review feedback cycle

2. If you could take any course (or courses) for free, what that course would be?

This is quite an insightful question - would the person pay for my PhD? (certainly I have been thinking about this…). After sifting through different topics that I would like to deep dive into (tarrot reading, SOA technologies, organizational design, entrepreneurial finance), one course I would really like would be on “Journaling like the Da Vinci”. In some stretch way of the imagination, blogging is a form of journaling. However, the ideas, opinions, details of Da Vinci’s thoughts, his curiosity, interests and findings left to us through his journals are extraordinary.

3. Are you satisfied with what you’ve achieved this year, in general?

Yes and no. On the personal side, I have learned tons about myself and about being an entrepreneur, and have even started to see the fruits of long-time personal goals. My previous corporate experience analogy of being stuck on the bus of the movie Speed, now feels more like an amusement park with fun (and not so fun) rides. However, I am still waiting for the epiphany to hit me (yes, I know that is a problem) for my next career step, so I can stop being a cost center.

4. Did blogging change your life or your personality in any way?

Absolutely. I ask more questions, I am more curious, and through exploration I learn more about my thoughts and perspectives: I go deeper than just reading the headlines. I also realized that I like writing, and it is a fun way to bring creativity into my life.

5. If you had the opportunity to meet one person that you admire the most in the world, who that person would be?

If I could time-travel to the past, it would be Mustafa Kemal Ataturk - he is great example of a leader with vision, personality, style and execution that changed a country. He would make a formidable CEO today. Since I don’t have a Tardis, I would choose Guy Kawasaki - great speaker, teacher/mentor and also humble with humor.

Now your turn. My “victims” shall be Rob Miller, Guy Kawasaki (maybe I’ll get my chance to meet him! :)), Anna McClain, Mike Griffiths (I enjoy his agile perspectives), and You the reader. Remember, you can alter any of the first four questions, but you must answer number 5 as written.